


Krystalline

by Continental



Series: Is This Thing Cursed? [1]
Category: Alkaline Trio (Band)
Genre: Angst, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-01
Updated: 2018-10-01
Packaged: 2019-07-23 07:22:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,094
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16154318
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Continental/pseuds/Continental
Summary: “I thought I wanted something different, but I was wrong. I just want you.”





	Krystalline

2 a.m. saw a lot of things.

2 a.m. saw water spots on the ceiling of a shitty city apartment. The crimson glow of a digital clock lit up an otherwise completely dark bedroom, any streetlights blocked out by the thick black curtains over the window. 

2 a.m. saw a calendar stuck to the fridge with a collage of magnets. The 28th of December was circled in thick red marker, but it was only October.

2 a.m. saw an empty temazepam bottle abandoned on the kitchen table, next to a to-do list with “refill prescription” written and unchecked at the top. 

2 a.m. saw the harsh lights of a bathroom, a foggy mirror, and an exhausted man sitting on the tile floor with nothing but a bath towel draped over his lap. He sat there for a very long time, overcome with thoughts and fatigue, yet sleep was out of the question. It was just a matter of how he planned to spend the next few hours before he fainted from exhaustion, and was forced to rest for at least a little while. 

The steam from the shower began to dissipate, and the cooling tiles eventually coaxed Derek from the floor and into the same pajamas he had spent the last week and a half in. 

2 a.m. was the only one that got to see him at his worst. 

He dropped a tea bag into a half-washed mug and put the kettle on to boil. 

He sat down at the kitchen table and leaned his head against the wood. He acknowledge the calendar for only a second before his eyes wandered away to look at other things. There was a picture of the two of them stuck right on the center of the freezer. They were celebrating two years together in that photo, just a couple of scrappy punks with barely any money in their pockets, running the streets of Chicago, and the smiles on their faces said it better than they ever could. They promised to never be apart for more than a month on that day, and yet four years later he had been gone for almost a year. Derek knew that keeping the picture up hurt more than it helped, but he also knew that taking it down would mean accepting the fact that their time together was finished. He never was good at finishing things. 

The kettle started to whistle, so he stood up with his mug in his hand, but slammed his foot into the leg of the kitchen table and dropped the cup, shattering ceramic over the tiles. 

Derek held his injured foot and swore. He limped to the stove and switched off the burner. He looked around for the broom and dustpan but couldn’t find it anywhere, so he knelt down and started to tediously pick up the pieces.

Keys jingled outside of his door, but it was the sound of his front door being unlocked that made him freeze. He looked up as the door opened, his heart pounding so fast that he thought he might go into cardiac arrest.

The deepest parts of his guts already knew who it was, but that didn’t stop his heart from dropping into his stomach when he saw that sickeningly familiar stature. He couldn’t see a face in the darkness, but the silhouette against the city lights outside told him everything he needed to know.

The silhouette closed the door, flicked on the lights, and held up his keys to the apartment. 

“I’m home.”

Derek could see his face now. It was exactly the same as the day he left, just a little more tired. His hair matted down onto his forehead from the rain, he wiped his shoes on the welcome rug and shrugged off his raincoat, as if he was just coming home from the grocery store. As if this was normal.

“Whoah– Hey, be careful–“

Derek hadn’t noticed that he was gripping a piece of the broken mug so hard it had sliced deep into his palm until he felt the warmth of blood gushing from the wound. The sudden pain knocked him out of his shocked state and he scrambled to his feet. He accidentally stepped in the small puddle on the kitchen floor, and it soaked into the bottom of his sock, but he didn’t notice. 

“Get out.”

“Sweetheart, you’re bleeding.”

“Don’t call me that. Get out of my house.”

“Derek, baby–“

“Don’t touch me!”

“Ow– fuck!”

Derek stepped back until his back hit the wall, the ceramic piece discarded on the floor.

Matt held his arm. A couple beads of blood were forming on a shallow cut.

“Matt… shit, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean… I didn’t mean to.”

Matt didn’t look angry at all. He was staring at Derek with nothing but empathy and concern in his eyes.

“Is everything okay?”

“Is… what?” He wasn’t sure he’d heard him correctly.

“Is everything okay? You seem out of it.”

“I seem… I…” Derek stared at him, blankly. The words replayed over and over in his mind, but they didn’t make any sense. Is everything okay? You seem out of it. Is everything…

Matt wandered over to the refrigerator and was admiring the photo of them on the center of the freezer. He removed it, carefully, and smiled down at it. He showed it to Derek, as if he hadn’t had to look at it in pain for the better part of a year.

“Two years.”

“Oh, fuck you.”

“What–“

“Is everything okay? Are you fucking kidding me, Matt?” Derek’s hands were planted firmly against the kitchen table, and he looked as if he might pass out at any moment. “Is everything okay? No. No, it’s not okay. You don’t… you don’t get to just… just walk back into my life like nothing happened after disappearing for almost a year. You don’t get to fucking do that to me, Matt.”

Matt sighed, and pushed the damp locks off of his forehead. He took a seat at the table, across from where Derek stood. 

“I know. I made a mistake, and I’m sorry.”

Derek scoffed and pushed away from the table to stare out of the kitchen window. 

“I’m sorry isn’t going to cut it, Matt. I counted every single day that you didn’t come back. I counted every single day, starting with the day you left until right now. That… that was a torture you can’t even imagine. You left me here, wondering what I did wrong, why I wasn’t good enough, why the love of my life suddenly woke up one morning wanting to run off with some girl from California.”

He glanced over his shoulder. Matt was gazing down at their photo, not saying anything, not even looking in his direction. The blood from the cut on his arm had smeared and dried, and left a bronze tint to his tattoos. Derek felt the quiver in his voice before he even spoke.

“You can go back to her right now, because I don’t care anymore.”

“That’s why I’m here.”

Matt looked up and tilted his head, a joyless smile barely present on his lips.

“Things… just weren’t working out between us. Me and her…”

“So, what? If you came all the way back here for a pity fuck, you’re not gonna fucking get it, so you might as well book your flight right now.”

“No, listen to me,” Matt said, rising to his feet. He crossed to where Derek was standing and almost put his hands on him, but second guessed himself, and let his hands rest in his jeans pockets. “Things didn’t work out because she’s… she’s not you. Every time I was with her, no matter what we were doing, whether it was eating, fucking, sleeping, whatever, it was so obvious that she wasn’t anything like you. I thought I wanted something different, but I was wrong. I just want you.”

Matt slowly rested his hands on Derek’s shoulders, turned him around to look at him, then let his fingers slip down his arms to grab his hands in his. The blood on Derek’s hands stained Matt’s palms, but he paid no mind to it.

“I love you.”

Derek was staring at something on the ceiling. His face showed an innumerable amount of emotions, and yet somehow still appeared empty.

“I loved you. I used to. I got over it.”

“‘Maybe if you looked me in the eyes when you said it, I would believe you.”

Derek closed his eyes. He felt Matt step closer, but he didn’t want to look. Everything was hurting.

“I want to think you still love me, Derek. Because God knows I still love you to death, and I always fucking will. I’ll love you until I’m rotting in my grave.”

Derek jerked his hands out of Matt’s grasp.

“You don’t get to love me anymore.”

He stormed out of the kitchen and was almost to his bedroom when Matt caught him by the arm.

“Derek, please, for the love of God–“

“Get your hands off of me!”

Begging and screaming overlapped as Matt wrestled them down onto the floor. Derek put up a fight, but his exhaustion eventually overtook him, and Matt was able to pin his back against the wall. They both sat there, panting, not knowing what came next.

Derek took a deep breath, then started to weep.

His entire body was racked with violent sobs as he leaned his head back against the wall, no longer trying to hide the agony he was in. It all came out at once, and the wall he had built to keep himself composed crumbled to dust right in front of the one person he never wanted to see him like this.

“I missed you,” he choked out. He attempted to wipe the snot and tears from his face, but only managed to leave a deep red smudge in his way. “God, I missed you so much.”

Matt’s lip began to tremble, and his chest started to heave, and then he was crying, too. He took Derek’s face in his hands and gently brought their foreheads together. His fingers traced soft patterns along Derek’s cheeks as he tried to wipe the tears away.

“I’m not asking you to forgive me,” he whispered. “I’m just asking for you to say you still love me. And if you don’t, tell me. I’ll leave and you’ll never see me again. I promise.”

“God, you know I still love you. I couldn’t stop if I wanted to.”

Derek let out a breath that sounded vaguely similar to a laugh, and Matt let out a breath he had been holding in all night. They sat there with their foreheads pressed together, with tears in their eyes and barely present smiles, and then their lips were pressed together with a passion that even a year apart couldn’t smother. 

They went crashing to the floor, Derek’s hands in Matt’s hair, Matt’s arms holding him impossibly close, their legs tangled together. “I love you” and “I missed you” were repeatedly whispered, gasped, moaned, screamed, and 6 a.m. saw them passed out on the living room floor in a mess of limbs and clothes.

Waking up with Matt’s lips on his skin brought a feeling of familiarity, as if he was coming home after a long time away. At the same time, it was as if nothing had ever changed, like Matt had never left. He was fooling himself by thinking that way; nothing was ever going to be the same. But, they could try. God, he was going to try.

Matt nuzzled into the crook of Derek’s neck and traced circles on his hip, gentle and comforting. Derek held him and didn’t dare to let him go. He pressed his lips into Matt’s hair and breathed him deeply into his lungs.

“I’m staying this time,” was whispered against his skin, in that beautiful voice he had missed hearing every time he woke up. Matt took his hand in his own, and kissed his palm where the blood was dried and the flesh was bruised.

Derek wasn’t sure if he believed him; that was the product of a year of wondering. But part of him wanted to believe him, because Matt came back, and he woke up next to him on his living room floor, because neither of them wanted to be separated long enough to get to the bedroom. Matt came back.

And that was enough.


End file.
